O N N I
back then our bones wouldn't break, always fighting to stay awake.

Uncertain of Mauja's intent, Onni just watches steadily, her face calming into smoother lines that are complacent. Her worry would do no good infecting the stallion who was already on his wit's end, so the painted mare made a concerted effort to avoid showing the upset in her gut upon her face. Hardly more than strangers, side by side in separate worlds, Onni was pleased to be company for the white stallion on this day. Her heart was an open window allowing any easy entry, and while the tobiano knew little about the former King of the Edge, his behavior was out of sorts for the small image she had clung to in her memories. Whatever his current experience was, it became obvious that it had wrecked his emotions that were previously held close to his chest. Frayed, splayed, open, Onni could see the edges of his thoughts like the blurred edges of his body. This was not the stoic creature she met.

The healer began to collect herself well enough to view this appaloosa as a patient, dead or otherwise. Perhaps her sunfire would not touch him where he stood, but her presence might still offer the comfort that underlies all the intentions of any medic. More important than healing the physical wound was offering peace of mind. If her company were to soothe the ache in his heart even a little, her job would be fulfilled. Silently, Onni stepped a tad closer to him, light eyes watching him intently with familiar warmth, radiating out across her face. She nods as he speaks, encouraging, shrugging her shoulders as his apology slurs out. "You do not have to apologize. I will listen to you, Mauja," she says, her voice sweet and light as always. "I do not fully understand, but I will listen." Perhaps, if she could come to understand, she may be able to help the spirit trapped with one foot in the realm of Helovia.

The shaman stays close, even as Mauja begins to have paranoia creep onto the edges of his face, fading and jerking uncertainly with a movement that screamed of nerves. She follows obediently, one ear cocked in his direction while her face turned forward. Lythy chirps nervously, burrowing himself in the wing on her shoulder, hiding his from from the sliding of the black bodies of trees as they passed the lines of their vision. Onni could never make out the forest, but she had a sense of being enclosed. Weaving with the footsteps of Mauja that bring them safely out of the past forest, clear finally of the shadows in the backs of her eyes, Onni wonders why their pace is slowing. To her, moving farther away from the Dragon's Blood tree leaves them only in the middle of harsher desert, for the ocean had long since receded further from the land. His words draw eerily, speaking of the others he had met.

An impassive yet warm face is kept in place on the pale expanse of Onni's face as he speaks, even as he mentions her being present with him. Where was she, if not in the red land she had called her home? "A separate Helovia?" she asks, her brows knitted down momentarily in confusion before she realizes once more that she is playing therapist, not detective. Quickly, she restores the same calm expression, looking out over the rolling carpet of fiery sand and rock. Somewhere else. Onni had no idea where else he could be. Even if he were to be dead to her world, would he invision a separate set of lands? Would those he had known reappear as different persons, like malicious spirits inhabiting the bodies of loved ones to play some cruel joke? More and more, the certainty she had felt that Mauja was dead began to slip. There was no better explanation, but even this did not explain everything.

"What is separating you from me?" she muses outloud to herself, feeling the songbird hop back to life on her shoulder now that they were clear of the phantom forest. "You are in my home, but what do you see?" How can you be in two places at once?